Thursday, 30 January 2014

In preparation for a forthcoming trip to South Africa, second year Drama and Applied Theatre students at St Mary’s University, Twickenham visited South Africa House in London on Wednesday 29th January as MP Peter Hain launched his book, Ad and Wal, detailing his parent’s contribution to the liberation struggle in South Africa.
The purpose of the trip was to give students a historical and
political background to the country before their visit in September, as
part of the Drama and Applied Theatre programme. These students
undertake a Theatre for Development
placement in South Africa where they have the opportunity to apply the
skills learned in the programme as part of a cultural exchange with
schools and communities.
Before their work placement, each student must deliver a 20 minute
presentation on an aspect of South Africa, development or healthcare in
order to expand their knowledge of the country and the issues that it
faced and continues to face. The trip to South Africa House gave them a
better understanding of the country, which will help them form better
relationships with the peers and school children with whom they will be
working.
The book launch was followed by a question and answer session with South African journalist John Battersby,
the former Editor-in-Chief of the Sunday Independent in Johannesburg,
who talked about the last 70 years of history in South Africa.
Senior Drama Lecturer Matthew Hahn,
who organises the annual trip, said, “The visit was a success as the
students were able to meet people with first-hand knowledge of the
hardships that many South Africans faced under Apartheid and the effects
that this still has on the country.”

Thursday, 16 January 2014

Forum Theatre is created from stories around oppressions,
imbalances, or difficulties faced by members of a specific community. The twin
goals of Forum Theatre are to promote positive behaviour change and to advocate
for human rights.

These stories are based on the reality of this community.These stories are personal and must have happened
to an individual in that group.Second-hand
or hearsay stories are not useful.

The theme of the piece of Forum Theatre created by the
St. Mary’s students in their Theatre for Development module focuses on ‘gender
equality and safer sex’ issues because I have found these issues to be pertinent
in Malawi, South Africa, the United Kingdom and elsewhere I have facilitated.

Within my work in the UK, I often see that there can seem
to be a certain avoidance or papering over of gender issues.It is because we are so cotton-wooled in
comfort and resources, that we often ignore the subtle and not so subtle gender
problems that exist here [and so much within the so called ‘developed world.’].

When I propose ‘gender equality and safer sex’ as the
issue of their assessed Forum Theatre piece, the majority of the students, at
first, tell me that they don’t see in their own lives that this is an
issue.But after reflection and the
creation of still images based on me asking them the question, ‘What happened
the last time you put your sexual health at risk?’, the students do begin to
see that gender imbalance is affecting their lives as well.Images of pulling shirts to reveal skin,
hands on buttocks, fear, shame, fingers pointing, images of great differences
in levels and the like are revealed.

This realisation based on their practical experience –
‘What happened the last time you put
your sexual health at risk? – brings it from the hypothetical or abstract
[‘What would you do if your sexual
health was at risk?] which usually engenders bravado in the group, to the
reality of a person’s situation.

The follow up question, then, is ‘What affect did that
have in your communication with that person?’Again, images created show a great imbalance between the person who has
power and the person who is lacking in power.

It is imperative to consider how to ethically deal with these
generated stories of a very personal nature in a teaching session that uses challenging
material – sex, violence & prejudice – as a stimulus.It is also imperative to get the students to
consider the ethical dimensions around the gathering of these stories as well
as the broadcast of such stories in a theatrical setting.

Within the Drama programme, there are four key principles
of ethical teaching that are expected to be addressed, whenever applicable:

·Integrity and quality should be ensured in
all teaching and learning activities

·The autonomy of individuals should be respected

·Harm to individuals must be avoided

·People should be treated fairly and with
respect

For each lesson there are clear aims & objectives so
the students know in advance what it is they will be discussing and creating
that day. It is stressed that no personal details
will leave the workshop and will be treated with respect at all times.Clear ground rules are created by the group
to provide a safe space where people can feel free to [or not to] share their
very personal stories.The above four
key principles provide the foundation for these guidelines.

There are three phases to develop a piece of
forum theatre and each has its own ethical considerations:

1] Story Gathering

Students are asked to pair up and share a
personal story around the topic [or if there is time, resources, and if
appropriate to interview their friends on the topic to widen the
research].The people gathering the
stories must stress to those interviewed that it is the universality of the
stories that are of most interest.Names,
locations, and any other information that might identify the story-teller can
be changed if necessary.By being
specific in these stories about the power imbalance, more people will recognize
them as opposed to a non-specific general story of an ‘oppression’.

These stories are then shared to the group to
find a group understanding of the topic.This begins to create a group cohesion and focus for the play that is to
be created.This again is done with
utmost care and consideration for the story teller.It is again stressed that no personal details
will leave the workshop and will be treated with respect at all times.

2] Devising the play

Once a story or stories have been
chosen that most adequately represents the views of the group, the devising
process begins.As the play is being
devised, the individual performers add their own points of view to the
play.It is of utmost importance that the Forum Theatre piece is genuinely devised
by participants using their own stories
rather than an externally driven process that brings with it outside agenda
[‘Don’t do drugs!’, ‘Unprotected sex kills!’].Participants [young and old] can
sniff this out, tune out within minutes and not achieve the stated goals of
behaviour change or advocacy for rights.

As I am the
facilitator in the process with no idea what it is like to be 20 something in
the early 21st century, it is of great import not to offer my
personal points of view in the content of the story.This serves to empower the group because, as
the creator of Forum Theatre, Augusto Boal, says that we are all experts in our
own lives and this expertise must be respected.Boal goes on to call the facilitator a ‘mid-wife’ who assists in the
birth of all ideas and actions, but does not provide any of the ideas or
actions.I
often follow up with open ended questions when devising the plays such as ‘Is this
realistic? Why?’ or ‘Has this happened to you? Can you tell me the details?’If there is agreement, then the addition
stays in.If not, the further discussion
is had to determine the best way to enrich the story.

As people are adding their own specifics to
the story or character, care must be taken to respect the contributions
especially when deciding against using them in the play.

3] Performing the play to a specific
audience:

Audiences can either be from the same
community who might face similar issues to those presented on stage to examine
how that community can change behaviour around a certain topic or, as in
Legislative Theatre where the piece of forum theatre becomes advocacy, the
audience can be a community that has the power to change the circumstances
around the oppression.

Two examples: the first is looking for
positive changes in behaviour within a community.The second is to advocate for social change.

Last year, St. Mary’s students created a
piece of Forum Theatre around condom negotiation examining whose responsibility
it is to provide the condom as well as the discussion ‘in the heat of the
moment’ on whether or not to use a condom.This piece of Forum Theatre encouraged calm discussion as well as a commitment
to using condoms regardless of the situation.This empowered the group to demand the right to protect themselves and
to not settle for anything less than full respect of this right.

My second example is of Legislative
Theatre.I just facilitated a piece of Forum
Theatre with a group of disabled activists at the Houses of Parliament.In the audience, there were MPs who had the
power to decide whether or not to support the recent cuts to government support
for the disabled.By the disabled
activists fully devising the piece with me acting as the midwife to give birth
to their ideas by providing the structure of Forum Theatre, the piece
truthfully reflected the conditions that would be felt if the Personal
Independence Payment allowance was eliminated.From that performance, we received the agreement from the gathered MPs
to vote against any more cuts.

Regardless
of who is in the audience or where the performance is, it is an ethical
imperative that the group, the audience and facilitator must work to not
‘victim blame’ the main character of the story – by focusing on how to change
his or her behaviour.It must not be
seen as a tacit
implication that by changing the behaviour of this character it is implied that
he or she is responsible for change which, in some situations, can lead to
victim blaming.

The key
is for the facilitators to extend their questions to collaborative or
collective action by the audience by asking ‘Who can the character go to for
help?’This encourages the community to
respond and take collective responsibility to make positive changes in
behaviour.

Working in Africa, there is another ethical consideration
that warrants attention but is not covered within this paper – that is the
‘North / South Divide’.A large aspect
of the Applied Theatre course is to promote the idea that when the students go
to Africa, they are not going to ‘teach’ or to ‘show the right path’ but rather
to empower both the British students and their South African counterparts through
skills development – ‘Learning through Drama’ [for example, gender equality
issues that face both British & South African young people] as well as
‘Learning about Drama’ [through the development of facilitation, acting &
workshop skills].

Too often, I have heard students on this course who want
to ‘help’ the people with whom we will be working.I stress to them that it is a cultural
exchange that is occurring – that it is a balance- an examination of similar difficulties [in
this case Gender Equality issues] that are faced by young people from different
backgrounds.

But a full discussion of the ethical dimensions around
this topic is for another paper.